The Jaka Project

@maria_elvirad
https://thenomadstudio.org

Dieppa’s bright, colorful, abstract oil paintings on linen and paper reference the landscapes and experiences that serve as the backdrop of her bicultural life. The forms are organic and animated. The scale ranges from the monumental to the intimate. The relationships between colors are critical. In fact, all relationships are important to Dieppa. She considers each painting to contain a conversation within it, one that she develops as she works. Located within the paintings is a subtle, personal iconography reflecting the back and forth nature of her experiences—a form picked from here, a color from there.

Maria Elvira Dieppa was born in 1961 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She began her education in the United States in Maryland at the age of 16 and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in architecture and design from Parsons School of Design in 1997. She returned to New York in 1998 with her two children and has since spent part of every year between Barranquilla and New York City. Solo exhibitions of her work include “Esto no es Abstracto” in Bogotá, Colombia and “Humedo” at Alianza Colombo Francesca- Gallery in Barranquilla. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at AECID-Embajada de Espana in Cartagena, Colombia; Lumen Festival, Staten Island, NY; GASP, Boston, MA; the Sackler Center at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and Martes Colectivo Bienal de La Habana, Havana, Cuba among others. Dieppa was the recipient of a Premio de Pintura Alejandro Obregon award in Barranquilla and a fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT.